Virtual assets are emerging as a powerful feature of online programs and games, Web portals, and other services. A virtual asset is a virtualized object maintained as an electronically-stored digital file in an online environment, which is often configured in a client-server typology. Virtual assets include objects that are actively played, such as characters to participate in online games, frequently massively multiplayer online role-playing games, like the World of Warcraft game, and avatars to experience online virtual worlds, such as the Second Life program. Virtual assets also include inanimate objects that are changed through use, such as an online log that records physical tokens that have been discovered in the real world by a user through, for instance, Geocaching treasure hunting, or a soft downloadable play cartridge, which dictates and tracks a user's progress through a virtualized exploration scenario that requires undertaking real world interaction and puzzle-solving, such as a Waymarking scavenger hunt.
A virtual asset has intrinsic significance to the owner within, and sometimes outside of, the context of the online environment. A virtual asset accumulates value through the actions taken by an owner within the online environment, which functions as a value driver that enhances the virtual asset through use. The owner builds equity in the virtual asset by investing time and money, frequently through an online subscription. The online environment provides a context for use of the virtual asset and offers differing levels of value.
Virtual assets are intended to be highly personalizable, configurable, and valuable. For safety, online environments ordinarily provide virtual assets with security characteristics, such as a user name and password uniquely matched to each user. As well, virtual assets tend to be stored in a digital format proprietary to the online environment's publisher, who also regulates the use and alteration of virtual assets through licenses and use policies. Often, the only way to modify a virtual asset is via an online server run by the publisher. Virtual assets physically reside in server-controlled databases and are thus server-bound. A virtual asset owner must be online to interact with and effect any changes to his virtual asset.
Change, though, can increase, or sometimes decrease, the value or significance of a virtual asset to both the user and other participants of the online environment, and the value can sometimes be reflected as real world value. The changes are necessarily domain-dependent, such as acquisitions to character inventory, increases in skill level, experience points, and so forth. As the usage, and hence the ability to change or enhance the value, of a virtual asset remains locked into the online environment, owners are effectively precluded from copying or distributing their virtual assets outside the online environment, as offline changes by third party applications are not recognized by the online server.
The inability to change a virtual asset outside of the online environment suggests that a virtual asset's value can become artificially stagnant. Offline and third party applications are unable to change a virtual asset. Every virtual asset user is tied to having a network-available connection to reach the publisher's server, which can smother value-enhancing opportunities, particularly where the user is willing to pay for offline use. As well, offline changes to a virtual asset could beneficially incentivize a user to return to an online environment if offline usage could just be recognized when the virtual asset is later re-introduced.